Chris Baldick

Baldick's smart, lively introduction alone makes this book a must-have for committed aficionados of the Gothic and dabblers in the supernatural tale alike. Baldick traces the tangled histories of all things Gothic, carefully yet wittily showing how the term has had radically different meanings over time. Indeed, the anachronistic variations in the meaning of "Gothic" produce the paradox that the "literary Gothic is really anti-Gothic," or at least strongly prejudiced against the European show more Middle Ages. In other words, the Gothic novel bodies forth an "ingrained distrust of medieval civilization," and it represents "the past primarily in terms of tyranny and superstition."

The first few stories in the volume, examples of the Gothic tale of the later eighteenth century, are violent and violently compressed narratives that move from danger to dismemberment and death within a few short pages.

Teachers of eighteenth-century fiction will find the first few stories particularly wonderful for classroom use.

Readers in search of the original publication history of the included narratives are advised to turn to the Notes at the end of the volume. show less

I will be straight with you, I dislike short stories; they're too short, you can't get into them before they're over, their brevity can't provide proper fleshed-out details, and they very often have fairly depressing resolutions—it seems somehow to be in their very nature. However, shortcomings aside, they make for good introductions into distinctive types of literature that one hasn't properly explored before. A good collection of short stories gives a glimpse into the style and show more characteristic features commonly found, and generally give someone at least a few ideas of authors to look further into. Hence, I will occasionally read some collections (also those of authors I especially enjoy, but I hate when they write them and make me read them! :P). And since I've read very little Gothic fiction but am very interested in it, especially the earlier prominent works, I figured I woul brave the evils of the short story and utilize this as a first real introduction.

I especially appreciated the introduction to this anthology; Baldick provided a nice detailed explanation of what makes Gothic literature, its origins, and background. This is rather complex and there's lots of details people disagree about (does it need to have X or Y, etc), but he does a nice job of laying out the fundamentals and giving readers a clear idea of what Gothic means. As for the stories, well, I'm sure Baldick had his reasons for choosing the stories he did, but a handful of them I just did not see the value of. I imagine this is partially due to my natural distate of short stories, but a few of them just didn't go anywhere at all. That said, there were definitely some good stories in this collection. One that sticks out especially much in my mind is The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson. I don't know that she actually meant any of it to be humorous, but some of her descriptions of what was going on had me laughing out loud. It was not a light-hearted tale, to be sure, but her wit in the text clearly shines. And while I don't enjoy all of Stevenson's tales, I found his Olalla to be quite interesting. These were not the only stories I enjoyed, of course, but they're the two that have really stuck with me the most. There were a bunch more I am glad to have read, though.

So. In the end, in spite of my general lack of favor, I gave this collection four stars. Since I don't care for short stories, my view on them often tends to be rather skewed to the negative; so I rounded up a bit for balance. Maybe that's silly, but I know I judge short stories more harshly than is really warranted plenty of the time.

For fans of Gothic fiction, and/or short stories, I'd suggest giving this collection a shot. show less

Picked this up to read it to mark the bicentennial of the 1816 story competition that produced both the title tale here and Shelley's Frankenstein. Polidori's story isn't bad, but with a couple exceptions, the other stories collected here are not worth the time. Le Fanu's "Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess" is notable as a precursor to his Uncle Silas, and N. P. Willis' "My Hobby,—Rather" was creepy-good.

A massive collection of stories spanning the history of gothic fiction. Tragic, strange, dark and grim, the stories are varied in length and structure, and will give you hours of sinister entertainment. It's sometimes hard to define what a gothic tale is, but reading this book will give you an understanding of the genre.